


ad meliora

by pantheras (rewindmp3)



Series: blood magic [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Gen, blood and magic but no blood magic, but there’s also, dragon deity!taeyong, heavily inspired by east asian folktales & mythology, new addition: witch!mark, phoenix deity!johnny, this is literally just LORE, tiger deity!mark, witch!taeyong and vampire!johnny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 22:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23134699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewindmp3/pseuds/pantheras
Summary: taeyong is a god before he is a witch. johnny is a vampire before he is a god.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Mark Lee & Lee Taeyong
Series: blood magic [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593493
Comments: 20
Kudos: 110
Collections: OBSCURE SORROWS FIC FEST, nct johnny seo and lee taeyong





	ad meliora

**Author's Note:**

> just an fyi: this fic doesn’t have anything to do with “in perpetuum”

Before Taeyong is Taeyong, he is a god.

He has many names. More accurately, he has many versions of the same name.

The idea of a nation-state is modern and new. But, if he were to try and explain his names properly, he would start with the fact that the Chinese would call him 紫龍 ( _zǐlóng_ , meaning: purple dragon). They would put him in a set of five with his siblings, the other Dragon Kings of the seas. There was 青龍 ( _qīnglóng_ , meaning: azure dragon), the god of the east, the patron of the East China Sea, the essence of spring. There was 朱籠 ( _zhūlóng_ , meaning: vermillion dragon), the god of the south, the patron of the South China Sea, the essence of summer. There was 黑龍 ( _heīlóng_ , meaning: black dragon), the god of the north, the patron of Lake Baikal, the essence of winter. There was 白龍 ( _báilóng_ , meaning: white dragon), the god of the west, patron of Qinghai Lake, the essence of fall.

They ruled the four cardinal directions with him as the center, the youngest, the baby who shouldn’t stray far from home. They coddled him and he would be lying if he said he didn’t love it, if he said he didn’t love his family dearly.

And who could forget, the ruler of them all, 黃龍 ( _huánglóng_ , meaning: yellow dragon). He was the oldest of the siblings, six in total, and he was Taeyong’s favorite. He was the one who was always _there_. Even if he had to leave often, to visit and confer with the other deities of other realms, it was him who would always return to the Golden Palace, who would teach his little 紫龍 all that he needed to do as a deity, who would let little 紫龍 have all of the sweet plums he could eat (before getting a stomach ache), who would find others (like his best friend, 玄武, _xuánwǔ_ , the Black Tortoise) to entertain and play with little 紫龍 like a _normal_ deity, despite the fact that he was an esteemed _dragon_.

But that was before… well.

The Japanese would call him the same 紫龍, in their own language, _shiryū_. The Koreans again would call him 龍—in their own language, _yong_ —because they knew that he was a dragon, a true dragon, for the orb of amethyst he was gifted upon his creation, his _yeouiju_ (just as his other siblings were given orbs of their own unique gems), deemed him so.

 _Would call_. Would call, because they no longer knew him.

In the West, he has no name. He is older than they are, was cast away and erased from people’s memories before the Greeks or the Romans or anyone else who could’ve given him a name existed.

It is a cruel story, his erasure, his exile to the human realm.

It is cruel because it is petty, exceedingly petty and childish in a way that only gods, whose lives are of the forever kind, have the luxury of possessing.

It is a story of jealousy, like these stories typically are, of siblings whose hearts grew more and more black as time went on (as purple complementing yellow grew stronger and stronger), of pointing fingers and resentful gods who would do anything to have one fewer dragon and trials in the heavenly court and the best 黃龍 could do, to save his little brother from a punishment worse than death, was to suggest exile.

Exile, until he knew not when.

But 黃龍 was all-knowing. This skill was one granted from birth, matured over time as he learned how to read the signs that nature would give him. So when the day came for him to send his little brother down into the earthly realm, with tears staining his cheeks and rain falling from the sky, he kissed the top of his forehead and whispered, “There is a reason for this. It will take millenia, but you will realize why this terrible thing has happened to you and gain a happiness you would have never gotten here. Hold that in your heart, my little 紫龍. We will see each other again.”

He was crying, too. He was not sobbing because that was unbecoming of a dragon, but the depth of his despair manifested itself regardless. In the human realm, tsunamis raged, drowning everything in their wake just as he was drowning in sorrow and betrayal, in addition to the rain that seemed like it would never stop.

One last hug, one last deep inhale of the citrusy scent of mandarin oranges that seemed to cling to his older brother’s robes, one last glimpse of the Golden Palace, and he was gone.

╳ ╳ ╳ ╳ ╳

Before Taeyong is Taeyong, he is simply a deity in the human realm.

The humans have already forgotten his name.

When he arrives in the human realm for the first time, eyes still red and mind still storming, he finds himself somewhere in what is now called China, grateful to be near a body of water. The dominion of dragons, after all, was water.

He is terribly lonely.

He spends most nights with his back against the grass, gazing up at the night sky, at the twinkling stars, wondering if 黃龍 is watching him, wondering if his other siblings have purified their hearts. He does not hate them. He does not think he is capable of hating them. He does not quite understand what it is that they’ve done, what it is that they think _he’s_ done, but he does not hate them.

There are things he does understand—if only just a little bit, just barely—things like _Fate_ and how even celestial beings, even the Four Creatures, cannot control it.

He does not know what he is meant to do, here, in his exile.

He runs into travelers, sometimes. He is _scared_ still, _terrified_ to approach them. It is quite unbefitting of a dragon. So he watches, listens. He learns. He feels his heart break when he hears stories of starvation and ruin and drought and he wonders whether or not he can help.

He gets braver. He inches closer and closer to listen and learn and he does not yet know what it means to humans to see a _dragon_ until he does.

When this happens the first time, he does not realize that the humans have seen him. But he is finally brave enough and curious enough, through his own volition, to follow them. His heart breaks again when he sees the dire straits of the village, the dry patches of land and the ribs of all the humans and their animals, and, that night, he cries.

He cries and cries and, the next morning, there are rain puddles on the ground and morning dew in the air and the travelers tell their village about the creature they think they saw, about the beast who must’ve been a god, about the god who must’ve heard their prayers.

He is not aware that they talk about him so, having hidden himself once more.

But he does this, time and time again, a small favor for these desolate little humans that he can _save_.

The humans write about him, when they finally learn how. They write pages about him, in the various forms and places they think they’ve seen, in what they call 《山海經》, the _Classic of Mountains and Seas_.

When he realizes that the humans know about him, or at least about dragons and deities and other beings, he tries to recall what 黃龍 taught him about his duty.

They liken imperial signifiers after him, after dragons. They worship him and his kind, and he does his best to earn it. He remembers his lessons about omens and dreams and blessings and tries his very best to let the humans know who is fit to rule and who is not.

He makes mistakes, sometimes. Or, the humans make mistakes when they cannot understand the signs he so readily provides. He watches dynasties fall, watches men slaughter one another in droves, as he works as quickly as he can to restore balance and peace.

He leaves the place they now call China during the Ming. He’s curious, has always been curious, so once he settles the new dynasty into its place, he remembers the path of the tributary ships—carved into the water, into his domain—and follows it.

He finds himself in a peninsula near collapse. In sheer panic, he tries to find the men he thinks are virtuous and strong and prays that he’s right and begs Fate to forgive him if he’s wrong.

They call the new dynasty Chosŏn, as they have with dynasties before, and he watches and waits and hopes that nothing crumbles apart.

He watches the Ming fall to the Manchus and is powerless to stop it, too far away to send strong enough omens and this, he thinks, might be the beginning of the end.

╳ ╳ ╳ ╳ ╳

Before Taeyong is Taeyong, he is a witch.

He wonders why it is that humans have gotten dumber over time. It is not a nice thing to think, certainly not, but it is _true_. He wonders if it is because he has been too narrow-sighted in his reach, because the Westerners came with their war and their destruction and their ideas of enlightenment that was anything but, and suddenly he did not exist.

Well, he did not exist as he should have.

They did not believe that people had influence over the elements, and for those who did, they cursed and called them _witches_. They did not know about dragons and their water. They had their own things called dragons and they breathed _fire_ and it was all so incredibly _wrong_ to him, to have his kind be associated with the one element of the Five that was so _different_ from their domain.

He still had to _exist_ , though, in the human realm. His exile was not over.

What humans have _always_ failed to realize is that what they _believe_ happens in their realm necessarily manifests itself. Deities, spirits, ghosts, demons—every supernatural being that must materialize in the human realm can only do so in a form that humans can recognize, can understand. So when they believe in and conceive of concepts like vampires and werewolves and fae and witches, they become _real_. They have to. The otherworldly beings have no other option.

He has always listened, learned. So, he adapts.

He takes on a human-like form—because that is the form humans believe witches, believe those with control over the elements and over spirit, take—though he can do nothing about his eyes that twinkle with the galaxies from which he came, or the dragon scale scar that sits on his skin.

There are still whispers of prayer for him, for his help. He tries the best that he can to follow the voices of hope, but sometimes… sometimes he can no longer hear them. He _knows_ they call for him, can feel it in his bones that they need him and his omens and his water, but the loud, heavy, incessant chug of machinery churns in the air, disturbing the wind and the nature and the messages they would have carried to him, if only they could.

He loses his grasp on the world, slowly but surely, day by day, and it _kills_ him inside. His purpose, he’s realized over the millenia, is _guidance_. He used to guide the _world_ , but he’s finding it harder and harder as the years go on and it _kills_ him. Is this the punishment he was meant to have in his exile? This crushing defeat? This overwhelming worry for a world too big for him to mold alone?

He loses his grasp on the world, but Fate brings him a boy, a young witch boy whose purpose—whose _magic_ —burns brightly. It pours from him, the need to shoulder the burdens of those around him, to chase away fire and thieves and ghosts, to _protect_. This young boy would have been a tiger in the heavenly realm, if he were born in the right place, in the right time. Instead, he is a witch.

His name, he says, is Mark Lee.

When Fate brings him to Mark, he realizes he needs a name. He realizes that here, in the human realm, in this moment, his purpose now has changed. Mark should have been a deity. This much is obvious. Perhaps, one day, he _will_ be a deity, restored from the human realm and given his proper title instead of _witch_. But first, he needs guidance. He needs someone to teach him the ways of the Golden Palace, the ways of omens and dreams and blessings, and Mark is _purpose_.

So, he fashions a new name for himself. Taeyong. He uses Mark’s surname. It is not strange because there are many who hold it and if Taeyong is to be to Mark what 黃龍 was to him, then Taeyong knows he will love Mark so very fiercely. They are brothers, now, in every way but blood.

And Taeyong does love him, more than he thought was possible. He loves Mark in a way that eases the ache he feels for _home_ , even though it has been thousands of years since his exile. He wonders if this is what his oldest brother felt for him, and hopes the respect he holds for 黃龍 is what Mark holds for him.

Taeyong teaches Mark the ways of the Golden Palace, the ways of the deities, and Mark is _bright_. He understands, innately, how to send portents and signs and how to shape those signals into something that fits _him_. This last step, Taeyong cannot teach him. The purposes of dragons and tigers are different, after all, guidance versus protection.

But still, Mark does incredibly well, and Taeyong is _so proud_ of his little brother. He calls Mark his angel, because that is what Mark is, in the Western sense: the protector of human beings. He calls Mark his little tiger cub, because that is what Mark was _meant_ to be. It is what Taeyong believes Mark _will_ be, given time.

For all that Taeyong helps Mark by enlightening him to the ways of the heavenly realm, Taeyong thinks that Mark helps him more. He’s given Taeyong a _purpose_ again, and sometimes, when Taeyong is too quiet—too lost in his thoughts of home and his brothers and how he forgives them for being the vehicles of Fate—Mark will cuddle up to him, like the cub he is, and offer his own sort of protection: his warmth.

That is, until Mark is no longer _warm_.

╳ ╳ ╳ ╳ ╳

When Taeyong is Taeyong, he meets Johnny, who is a vampire.

And Taeyong _hates_ him.

It starts like this: Mark disappears.

The first few days, Taeyong makes little note of it. Now that Mark is old enough, now that he has learned enough, he can hear the calls that humans make for him, whether the humans realize it or not. He follows the calls, like Taeyong taught him how to do, and fulfills his purpose. He protects them as best as he can from the supernatural beings and other forces that find humans so fun to tease and Taeyong is _proud_.

But when Mark does not show up at Taeyong’s doorstep after nearly a week, Taeyong begins to worry.

 _Mark can handle himself_ , Taeyong tries to reason, but his concern is betrayed by the clouds that darken the sky and the mist that fogs up the air when it’s been three more days and Mark is still not there.

Two days later, it begins to drizzle. Sometimes, Taeyong thinks that he can hear something. He thinks he can hear someone asking for him, begging for him to guide them home, and he thinks it might be Mark but _he’s not sure_ because the droning of the machinery everywhere and nowhere all at once interferes with nature’s ability to communicate with him and Taeyong thinks he’s going insane.

He’s sitting there, trying to make sense of the faint tendrils of _purpose_ he can feel around him, when there is a banging on his door. Taeyong almost trips over himself in his haste.

When he flings the door open, he feels relief. The drizzling rain halts for only a split second, because it’s Mark and he’s _alive_ , but his eyes are _silver_ and not _his_ , his warm brown eyes that hold earth and and power and promise, and Taeyong is gripped with fear.

“Taeyong,” Mark whimpers before he collapses into Taeyong’s arms, shaking.

Mark is cold. Mark is never cold.

“You’re okay,” Taeyong breathes into Mark’s hair as he holds him. “You’re back home now,” Taeyong whispers as he rubs Mark’s back, trying to warm him up again. “Everything’s going to be fine,” Taeyong says, even though he doesn’t believe his words and his heart is pounding in fear.

Through the soft pattering of raindrops comes a shout: “ _Mark_!”

And, suddenly, Mark is no longer in Taeyong’s hug, but behind him, eyes fearful and distrusting and hands gripping the back of Taeyong’s sweater like he’ll never get to again.

A man fills the doorframe, which had been left open in Taeyong’s haste.

He cannot enter because it is not his home and, Taeyong realizes, he is a vampire.

“Go away, Johnny!” Mark cries, “I don’t want your help, not after what you made me!”

Then, Taeyong understands. Body cold, eyes silver, gone for nearly two weeks—

“ _What_ ,” Taeyong hisses, “have you _done_ to Mark?” His eyes flash with lightning and his voice rumbles with thunder and, outside, it begins to pour.

It is not that Taeyong holds disdain for vampires. He does not care much for the different species the humans have imagined, does not think anything of the distinctions humans have made in their diets or their ways. But this is _Mark_ , his charge, his purpose, his _little brother_ , and they have turned him into something he was not meant to be, although Taeyong cannot hear Fate right now, ears ringing in shock and rain heavy against the roof.

“He was bleeding out on the side of the road!” the vampire named Johnny tries to explain. “I was trying to help him! He wasn’t supposed to die yet—and I don’t know how I knew that, but I _did_ —so I turned him!”

“You kept me in a dungeon,” Mark growls, like the tiger he is supposed to be (not a _vampire_ , not a _witch_ , not anything else but). “You locked me away in there when all I wanted to do was go home.”

“Because you have to learn!” Johnny says, exasperated. “Look, can I come in?”

Mark’s grip on Taeyong’s sweater tightens. He does not want Johnny to enter. Taeyong does not want Johnny to enter either, this Johnny who he doesn’t know, but he saved Mark’s life, even if he made Mark cold, and he is right. Taeyong does not understand the ways of the vampires and he does not know when his exile will end, or when Mark will take his rightful place at the Golden Palace. Mark has to learn. Besides, before Taeyong was Taeyong and before Taeyong was a witch, he was a god. He can hold his own against a vampire, of all things. He can hold his own against Johnny, if he tries to take Mark from him again.

He does not trust Johnny. He does not like him either, not at all. But Taeyong lets him in.

╳ ╳ ╳ ╳ ╳

Before Johnny is a vampire, he is simply Johnny.

This is something that Taeyong learns as Johnny tries to teach Mark the limits of his new body.

Taeyong and Mark do not trust him. Taeyong would go far as to say he hates Johnny, at least at first, because Johnny quite nearly took Mark away from him. Taeyong is not nice to Johnny, at least at first, and he knows it is petty and foolish, but he was taken away from his family once and he does not want it to happen again.

Mark makes it clear that his loyalties lie with Taeyong, and for that, Taeyong is grateful. He refuses to go back to the castle, insists on staying with his brother, and Taeyong finds that Mark does not need to be warm to warm his heart.

To gain their trust, and to teach Mark about transitioning into life as a vampire from that of another being, Johnny tries to explain who he was before he was turned. He tells them about how he was a lawyer, because he had wanted to help people, because he knew that the law favored the rich and the powerful, but that was not how benevolence, and charity, and _humanity_ were supposed to be. Johnny explains how he was about to win a case, a grand thing against some large conglomerate that would have put _millions_ back in the hands of the people who rightfully deserved it, and that was his downfall. He tells them of how he was jumped and left to die on the side of the road, not unlike Mark when he was trying to fulfill his purpose to _protect_ , but instead he found himself granted another chance at life.

Mark warms up to Johnny, but Taeyong is not surprised. Mark’s soul is too kind for anything else. He warms up to Johnny so much that he begins to joke that Taeyong is his mom and Johnny is his dad and he is the child who is learning from his parents. It makes Johnny smile, makes Taeyong grimace, because Taeyong still does not trust this vampire who almost took his family away.

Taeyong can see the truth to Mark’s words, though. He is not blind.

Johnny teaches Mark all that he knows, but Johnny is not Taeyong. Johnny has not instructed Mark for decades in the same way that Taeyong has, so it is Taeyong who tries his best to ease the frictions that arise as Johnny tries to impart his knowledge. They are raising Mark, together, bit by bit, and Taeyong is not sure how he feels about sharing.

Johnny does not stay with Taeyong and Mark. He lives in a castle, full of other vampires (the cliché that humans have constructed for them, fulfilled). Theirs is a large coven, and while its size makes living easy, it is lonely. He tells them about his friend in the coven, Jaehyun, who was supposed to keep an eye on Mark but failed because he was distracted by a fae named Ten.

And Taeyong learns that Johnny cannot lie, because when Mark has gone to rest—and he and Johnny are sitting together, knees almost touching but not quite—and he asks about Jaehyun and Ten and whether that makes Johnny lonely, Johnny cannot answer him. He smiles sadly, and Taeyong understands, because he still remembers his time in the Golden Palace, surrounded by other deities who were supposed to be his friends, but lonely all the same.

Still, Taeyong does not trust him and Johnny knows.

He does everything right, really. Johnny always asks before coming in, despite the fact that Taeyong has already welcomed him into their home and Mark clearly has no more reservations and he no longer needs to ask. He teases Taeyong, sometimes, but when he sees that Taeyong is uncomfortable, he stops immediately with apologies in his eyes and on his lips. When he and Mark need to go for a hunt, he lets Taeyong know first, even if Mark already has, and asks Taeyong to guide them in the direction of people who could stand to lose a little blood.

Taeyong is not forthcoming with his past. He has not even told Mark many things about it, much less Johnny. Mark knows that Taeyong is old, that Taeyong can see and hear and understand much more than what a “normal” witch might, knows what Taeyong’s purpose is, what he listens for. But he does not know what Taeyong is. It is difficult to explain to supernatural beings born in the human realm, who know nothing of the heavenly realm or of the spirit realm or of any other realms except for the mortal one.

Johnny knows that Taeyong is a witch who has control over water, over weather related to water, but Taeyong knows that Johnny suspects he can do _much_ more. Taeyong can see it in the way Johnny looks at him when he loses focus of his surroundings as he listens for the voices that call for his guidance, like maybe Johnny can hear the voices too and knows what Taeyong is trying to do. He has the good grace not to mention it, recognizing that Taeyong might find it uncomfortable to share with him. Small mercies.

Still, Taeyong does not trust him.

╳ ╳ ╳ ╳ ╳

After Johnny is Johnny, he is a deity in the human realm.

Taeyong comes to this realization one night, when Johnny has returned to his castle and Mark is away, fulfilling his purpose, and Taeyong finds the house empty enough for him to think.

He thinks about the unease that sits in his chest whenever Johnny is around. He thinks about how at first he was scared of Johnny taking Mark away, the only family Taeyong has ever known in the human realm, and how he hated Johnny because of his fear. He thinks about how Johnny acts, when he is in their home, and how Johnny does his best to work around Taeyong’s suspicions of him, to make everyone feel comfortable. He thinks about how now what scares him is the fact that Johnny has seemed to make himself at home in their home, to mold himself into the perfect counterpart to Taeyong when they are teaching Mark, to become irreplaceable in their lives, in Taeyong’s life.

Taeyong thinks about Johnny’s past, and his present, and suddenly, he understands.

仁 _rén_ , the virtue of benevolence, charity, and humanity. 義 _yì_ , honesty and uprightness. 智 _zhì_ , knowledge. 禮 _lǐ_ , correct behavior and propriety. And 心 _xīn_ , faithfulness and integrity, so evident in everything that Johnny does, in everything that Johnny _is_.

The Five Virtues, embodied in one being.

Johnny is a phoenix. Johnny may have been a human first, and a vampire after, but those were merely steps Fate had laid out for the phoenix who was born in the human realm. A human who needed to enter the rank of the supernaturals somehow, a human turned into a vampire. And now, a vampire but not a vampire, not because he is too _good_ to be one, but because he was always meant to be a phoenix.

Well, not a phoenix, per se. Not in the Western sense of the word, at least. Names are a tricky thing.

Johnny is a 鳳凰 _fènghuáng_ , one of the Four Creatures. A god. A deity. And more than that, Mark was right, and Taeyong was right in his thinking. Johnny is exactly the perfect counterpart to Taeyong, for who has not heard of the phoenix and the dragon, two halves of a whole?

Taeyong keeps this revelation to himself. Still, he does not know how to explain. He wonders if 黃龍 is still watching him, listening to his questions from the Golden Palace about what he needs to do.

But Taeyong does allow himself to relax, to let the wariness with which he treated Johnny fall away, slowly but surely.

Johnny notices, and smiles, _truly_ smiles. His smiles at Taeyong used to be small, tentative things, full of nerves and apprehension and fear of overstepping his boundaries. His smiles now, though, are big and bright and happy, and Taeyong almost regrets the discomfort he put them all through with his misgivings.

Almost regrets because Taeyong believes it is better to be safe than sorry. Almost regrets because the more comfortable he finds himself around Johnny, the longer Johnny stays with them in their home until he barely goes back to the castle altogether and the longer he and Johnny forego sleep to _learn_ about one another, well... the more scared Taeyong gets that he is about to lose it all.

╳ ╳ ╳ ╳ ╳

Johnny becomes a god.

Mark does, too, and Taeyong learns that he had nothing to fear at all.

It happens one night, when the stars are shining brightly and Mark and Johnny and Taeyong are sitting together, saying nothing but enjoying each other’s company regardless.

There is a blanket of comfort, of family and of home, that surrounds them in that moment, and while Taeyong is content, he cannot help but mourn the Golden Palace and all he had been forced to leave behind.

His oldest brother's words come back to him, then: “There is a reason for this. It will take millenia, but you will realize why this terrible thing has happened to you and gain a happiness you would have never gotten here. Hold that in your heart, my little 紫龍. We will see each other again.”

Taeyong thinks about his time so far, in the human realm. He put dynasties in place when others fell, created _worlds_ until he could do so no more. He discovered his purpose, and lost it, until Fate brought him to his little tiger cub. He built a family again, with Mark and Johnny, Johnny who was the 鳳凰 to his 龍. He found himself in his exile, figured out how he could help in a way that was so very different from his siblings, and he is thankful for that, but he misses home.

He misses the Golden Palace and his peaches and his best friend 玄武 and his brothers and he misses 黃龍 the most.

“We will see each other again,” 黃龍 had said, and Taeyong wonders if “again” can be “now.”

In the Golden Palace, 黃龍 smiles.

Taeyong had never tried to go back home before, no matter how much he had missed it. He had understood his exile and yearned for the heavens, but this call was so very different from the rest.

This call had understanding, had resolution and self-strength and inner peace, except for the fact that Taeyong would not be at peace until he was with _everyone_ he loved in the place he loved most and that meant that Taeyong was no longer searching. He was found.

He was a dragon who had finally, _finally_ , guided himself into his own and that meant that he was ready to come home.

The humans reported it as a freak weather incident. There was lightning that filled the sky, but no thunder or rain to accompany it. There were three strikes of lightning, in particular, that followed one after the other, bigger and brighter than anything they had ever seen before and all in the exact same place.

The humans did not understand it, but they never will because they had grown dumber, just like Taeyong said, and had forgotten about the deities of old.

In the Golden Palace, there are tears and embraces and apologies and forgiveness. There is the introduction of Mark and Johnny, ascended and enlightened, given their rightful appellations of 虎 ( _hǔ_ ; meaning: tiger) and 鳳凰 ( _fènghuáng_ ; meaning: phoenix).

Mark runs off to the other tiger cubs with a laugh and a wave, sociable as ever, but Johnny stays by Taeyong’s side, feathers gleaming and tail brushing against Taeyong’s own.

“Do you see now?” 黃龍 whispers into Taeyong’s ear, “Do you see what you were meant to find in your exile?”

Taeyong nods, serene smile growing on his face as his eyes flick over to Johnny, Johnny who is no longer Johnny just as Taeyong is no longer Taeyong because they are the phoenix and the dragon and yin and yang and they are _happy_.

“Good,” 黃龍 says, pleased.

“Welcome home, little dragon. Welcome home.”

**Author's Note:**

> i acknowledge that this is a piece of trash. like actual garbage. and i literally didn't proofread it before posting. BUT! i’m really stressed/overwhelmed/anxious right now and wrote this little thing in basically two days to get my mind off of things… i’m not really expecting people to like it or for there to be much response, but it helped me distract myself, so i’m grateful for this lil guy. and i hope i’ve managed to teach anyone who’s read this a little something about east asian folklore and history (but i don’t touch on the subjects nearly enough)
> 
> my words were:
> 
> wytai (noun): a feature of modern society that suddenly strikes you as absurd and grotesque—from zoos and milk-drinking to organ transplants, life insurance, and fiction—part of the faint background noise of absurdity that reverberates from the moment our ancestors first crawled out of the slime but could not for the life of them remember what they got up to do
> 
> la gaudière (noun): the glint of goodness inside people, which you can only find by sloshing them back and forth in your mind until everything dark and gray and common falls away, leaving behind a constellation at the bottom of the pan—a rare element trapped in exposed bedrock, washed there by a storm somewhere upstream
> 
> comments & kudos are always appreciated ^.^ ♡
> 
>   
>  [twt](https://twitter.com/maddogmp3) || [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/maddogmp3)


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